TheMitchells

Not sure we have one but will check.

Does anyone have any idea if our warm blown air central heating system is likely to have asbestos in it? Should I get someone in the check? The system consists of a large number of bricks, heated by 3 (only 2 working now) electric wires. Once warm, air is blown around and through ducting around the house. its been in there over 50 years and is now coming out for a new system but it was pointed out that it may contain asbestos. Now I am worried!

Any updates, please? I'm looking to get rads for our bungalow so would be interested in your opinion.

Have not listened yet, but would think it very difficult to do. Unless you really like vegetables and do not mind having the same thing most days. It would be hard work! Looking forward to listening to it. 😃

I am about to lay 4 porcelain tiles (120 x 30cm) and have cleared the ground, ready for the base layer of cement. However, i know that a slurry is recommended for the back of the pavers. I can see the bags of slurry for porcelain are about £30 and as i only have 4 to lay, i would have lots left over. Am i able to use something like the evo-stick flexibond primer as it is only a tenner? https://www.wickes.co.uk/EVO-STIK-Flexibond-Tile-Adhesive-Primer-White---1L/p/253284 I did see that Wickes have this, which is only £20 so if not the Evo-stick, i'll get this. Just thought I'd ask?? https://www.wickes.co.uk/Mapei-Standard-Set-Plus-Grey-Ceramic+Porcelain-Tile-Adhesive---20kg/p/252711?gad_source=1 ps - I know it is recommended to lay on a sub-base but my ground is complete brash - compacted stone, which i have to dig out with a pick-axe. So I am doing away with the sub-base. Its only for a small seat and the ground is solid! I'll surround the pavers with gravel.

Okay - I'll see what they say and post details. I rang one firm yesterday and he turned up this morning, on time, seemed pleasant and not at all pushy, said he'll give a quote in a few days. I was quite impressed. He even seemed to know all about Passivhaus which I took as a good thing. Our bungalow is only 68m2 currently and adding the extensions will only add an aditional 30m2.

Is that true? We are in the process of getting quotes for our Ellesmere bungalow for ASHP, PV, radiators etc. I shall post details on here when they come in but I'd happily pay someone to fit them as it would probably happen so much quicker. I guess for me, taking the worry away of making it all work and getting it done as soon as possible, makes it worth paying more. As long as it isnt too much more!🤔

no - this is the current rear of the bungalow. we are looking to remove the flat roofed extension, add 2 m to the side, in line with the bit sticking out the right hand side (currently a porch) and add a full width extension, with pitched roof. We have not got as far as plans. Just seeing if things are do'able. The beam would go across the current rear wall and hopefully hold up a vaulted ceiling. the second photo shows what we were thinking of. (different building but nearby). I need to measure the height of the current roof to see if we could pitch the new one into it, without it looking silly. it may be too shallow a pitch.

While planning the extension to our bungalow, we are hoping to open up the lounge/kitchen area with a gulam beam, to give a vaulted ceiling. It would need to be around 8m long. We'd like wood for aesthetics. Is this do'able? Or would we need a post in the centre, which would give us difficulties in the layout?

After building the shower room, we had a free shot at planning so I put in for an extension down the side of the bungalow, to create a utility room and this was granted. But we did not think my parents could cope with the building work so it was never implimented. And, as they do little cooking, the current kitchen is enough for them. See origional and permitted plans. However, now that we are planning to move into the bungalow ourselves in the future, we would be looking to remove the flat roofed lounge extension and extend across the whole back to give a larger open plan kitchen/sitting room/dining area. We now need to upgrade the current heating system/addition of ASHP and it would need to have capacity for the new extension too. So we need a plan for whenever we do the renovation. This turned out to be far harder than I thought. The side would be extended out 2m, which would then extend to the current length of the lounge. We would like to have a pitched roof, giving a valted ceiling, tied into the current roof. The new exension would have patio doors to the garden and we'd need another door into the garden (I assume we need a second door rather than use the patio doors). But positions of those and new windows are flexible. We looked at what furniture we would be taking with us, and then after much discussion, came up with plan 1. I am thinking the utility room could have a complete wall of units, including the washing machine and a tall fridge freezer, then just an under-counter fridge in the actual kitchen. We dont have a dishwasher (thats his job) and am thinking an induction hob could sit on the kitchen island. But our plan does not look like we'd have many kitchen units. However, he plans to get rid of anything we dont currently use so is convinced we'd manage. (that arguement does not apply to the garage and workshop - just the kitchen!😁) So with our plan, we can now go ahead with renewing the heating system with an ASHP, radiators in the bedrooms, bathrooms and one large one in the entrance to the lounge. I am hoping the large night storage unit at the far end of the lounge (under a large window) will be able to stay for now. Then, we'd install UFH in the new extension eventually. My main concern would be to see if we can have a single beam across the whole exension, to avoid a post/pillar in the middle of the open plan room. It would need to be nearly 8m. If it were a gulam beam, that would make a fabulous feature with the vaulted ceiling. Any thoughts??

Very interesting. we had a smart meter installed yesterday and are planning PV, ASHP and Battery for my renovation of a bungalow. I'm with Octopus so I may have to have a word. Thanks for the info.

Life has been busy since I started the blog so apologies for the lack of posts. However, the hot water went off in the bungalow on Monday so this has become an issue again. In April, the hot water also stopped working. I called Worcester then as the hot water cylinder was still under warranty. When the engineer arrived, he replaced the immersion but he did say that the installed hotwater cylinder, a GreenStore SC 120l indirect unvented cylinder, should have a boiler to heat the water. We dont have a boiler. The hot water is heated overnight by economy 7, via the immersion. He said it was not designed to heat the water all the time and that was probably why it failed. It was installed in Dec 19. So I am not sure if the plumber who provided and installed the cylinder gave us something incorrect or not? He obviously knew we didnt have a boiler. But too late to moan about that. It does mean that we really ought to to get cracking on installing a new system that works. And I would like to make use of the government grant for ASHP, before they close down it down. Especially as we have a new government! Having looked at the Air-to-air systems, I believe we should just go down the ASHP route, with radiators. I have therefore contacted CVC to come up with a plan! The extension and renovation of the kitchen/rear of the bungalow is not looking like it will happen in the next few years. So it makes sense to go ahead with the ASHP, add radiators to the bedrooms and rear of the lounge, keep the night storage heating for general heating in the lounge (my parents like to be warm) with an electric fire for when it is really cold! the system will need expansion for when the extansion is built, whenever that is. If we remove the old warm air unit, which is in the centre of the bungalow, we will gain an extra cupboard. But where would the ASHP go? I'd rather not put it in the rear garden or side as thats where we will add the new extension. Am i able to put it in the front garden? I have asked if CVC do site visits, so I can be sure they understand the requirements and oddities of the bungalow. But I dont think anyone does these now - its all done via email and drawings 😕. I shall let you know what they suggest. The second decision is with regards to the addition of PV on the front roof. If we are doing all this, I need to find out if this would be a good time to add the PV too. My guess is that it is worth doing everything together. I shall report back what CVC suggest. Another call from the parents this morning changed things slightly. They had not realised but it was the whole night-time electricity supply that wasnt working, not just the immersion! They have a very strange system with 2 completely separate rings. One, runs off daytime, and has everything on it apart from the hot water cyclinder immersion and the night storage heaters. The other, night time has the rest. It would make sense to run the washing machine at night but this is on the daytime ring, so uses daytime supply, whenever it is used! Very odd. So I therefore cancelled the Worcester engineer and called Octopus who were very good and sent an engineer out this afternoon. he checked and confirmed that the night time supply was not getting though so installed a new smart meter. We are holding our breathe to see if tonight, it heats up the hot water. But the cable did light up his gadget - so it looked okay. And the Smart meter should help us see what is using their energy as they seem to be using far more than I would have expected from a small bungalow. I have also contacted a local supplier of Renewables to get a quote from them to give us a comparison. I shall post in the relevant section for comments. I guess we knew as part of the renovation, we would have to change the heating system, but we had hoped to do it all in one go. Hopefully we can make the changes needed now, with the ability to expand into the new extension, once done.

I volunteer in the Bicester Green shop, Sheep street, Bicester and we regularly have lots of great stuff in that could be useful for the builder or DIY'er. Today there were boxes of bolts/nuts/washers/Milwaukee Impact Driver. If in the area, I would recommend taking a look - its perfect for anyone looking to save some money. Many of the things are brand new and all electricals are Pac tested. We do add some things to Ebay but most are in the shop. I'm back there most Tuesday mornings if you need any more info about anything in particular. https://www.bicestergreen.org.uk/ 20240706_114903.mp4

Is anyone else watching these? I've gone back to the beginning and watching from the start. But whenever Gearoge goes back to see the finished building, the furnishings and accessories look more like a magazine shoot than the builders home! Do they just get interior designers to fill it for the tv before the actual builders/renovators fill it with their own stuff? I do love what they are all doing and its great to see the old buildings come to life again and have a new purpose.

Picture 1 shows the south facing roof. As you can see on the left the roof doesnt go all the way to the top. When we do the whole new extension, it will go all the way down the side of the bungalow. From the right blue arrow to the left blue arrow, extending the flat roof extension all across, and the garden wall (yellow) will have to go. But we hope to have a pitched roof, with vaulted ceiling in the new part. The car is parked pointing at the new shower room. Hope that clarifies things.

It has taken a while but i have just realised that air to air heat pumps are quite different to ASHP which is what i thought you were recommending. Air to Air ones sound like a possibility. I am hoping to speak to CVC soon as recommended by @Nickfromwales and shall see if they think air to air would be suitable. And I'm off to the NEC on Saturday for the renovation show so am hoping there will be plenty there to research.

Not much. maybe an extra panel or two but not much more. We have added a shower room to the side, but the roof does not go all the way to the top of the main roof. Our new extension would. I have asked about the inverters and am waiting for a reply.

Forgive my ignorance, but how would that heat them? By heating the storage unit during the day? If so, I'll take a look. We didnt think we would change the ehating system until we did the whole renovation and are hoping the storage unit will carry on for a few more years. It is about 50 years old already and one electric coil did break recently so it is being heated by 2 coils. But as the place doesnt have radiators, we hoped to not have to install them with a change to a new heating system. Particularly as I would like UFH in the new extension and kitchen. I'd leave the bedrooms and bathroom as is. (ie no UFH). I would like to insulate the floor and would look to dig out the kitchen but leave the rest (bedrooms and bathrooms) so we can add insulation and UFH to the rear half. The windows are okay at the front - maybe I'd just need to add airtight tapes to minimise draughts/airflow, being in mind I would like MVHR. The bedrooms are next to a fairly busy road and I would hope to be able to have fresh air without having the windows open as I am a very light sleeper.

It could be because of the distance between the bungalow and the garage where we were planning to put the battery. we'd need a trench and armoured cable. At the moment, we have put the PV on hold till we know we can do it without it being affected by later works on the extension. And the extension would increase the roof slightly, so it may be worth waiting till we can do the max size we can fit.

which can be quite a lot. They seem to have the washer on most days and dont seem to understand the concept of defrosting food during the day, rather than trying to cook it from frozen! 😄 I dont mind the long payback, we hope to be there for many years after Mum and Dad no longer need it.

After my OH's reluctance to go for PV soon, I needed a plan. We had already talked and visited a local Eco Architect company when researching for our planned Passivhaus for the time we thought we had a plot. I therefore got in touch to see what they offered. We had a zoom meeting when i explained my plans. Basically i wanted someone to help me plan the stages we could do now to help improve the parents comfort, with the intention to do the whole extension renovation when they don't need the bungalow anymore. So I was thinking cavity wall insulation/triple glazed windows to the front bedrooms (we wouldnt change this when extending) and PV with battery. But on talking to the architect, it was suggested for them to help, we needed the long term plan finalised first, which i guess makes sense. They suggested they help us come up with a plan for the extension and then they could make suggestions for several levels of build - Passihaus, AEBC retrofit standard at 50kWh/m2 and EnerPHit. they produced a proposal;- Helping to prepare a phased approach will be a further cost which could be up to £2k. But when I said that my planned budget for the whole job was £100k, I was astonished when the architect suggested we'd need up to twice that! That just would not be doable - the place would never be worth that much being spent on it. I dont mind spending a good amount to make it a lovely place for us to live into our old age but at that rate, it would be cheaper to just make it comfortable with a standard extension and spend the rest on additional heating to keep us warm. We'd never get anywhere near that back, even with lower bills. My calculations - PV and Battery 10k new windows to front and cavity insulation 10k new extension to rear 80k including airtightness tapes, underfloor heating in the rear half, MVHR. But maybe I am being unrealistic. It woud not be a huge extension and we'd keep most of the internal walls. The plan above shows the extra space we have to work with. When he did the shower room, Patrick moved the wall out slightly in the porch, and when he put in the window, he added a lintel suitable for the front door to be moved to the side, leaving the old front door as the door into the new utility room. we were already thinking ahead. The plan now is to have a chat with our builder, Patrick, and see what he suggests. I know he has done a Passivhaus and so knows how to build well. I trust him to do an excellent job and with the advice of folks on here, I hope to be able to come up with a plan for the extension then a phased scheme of work which hoepfully Patrick can help with. And I am going on an airtightness tape workshop soon so I can help with work too.

While my parents are still in the bungalow, we are reluctant to do any major work as they would not cope with it. However, I am keen to make improvements if possible. The heating system is a large very old solid block in the centre cupboard, heated by electric coils overnight (economy 7) and then blown around the place. It works fine and is quickly heats the place up, which they like. There is gas in the road but not to the property and when they needed a new hot water tank, we installed a new one. But their electricity bills are rather large! They like it warm with a couple of extra night storage heaters on full most of the time and an electric fire in the lounge for when its cold🫣. So as their roof is south facing with no shading, I thought it makes sense to add PV and could be used to help bring down their bills (the OH says it will not be of much help). Adding a battery is an option though it may have to go into the garage which is abuot 15/20m away from the main building. We had a quote done but someone a friend recommended. - DATE: 24/05/23 Page 3 of 8 Description of goods and services we will provide… ........................................ Limited recommends the following price proposal based on the information and suitability of your property. This seems quite reasonable and is about £3k less than one we had from Scottish Power who didnt even come and have a look. At least the first chap came and measured up and had a good look round the whole property. BUT, the OH is quite worried that if we had it installed now, when we did do the main renovation, it would all need to be changed. he thinks it would be better to wait and do it all at once. Which I can understand. On the other hand, we could be having free elctricity for several years..... Time for a think........

We bought the bungalow in 2018 to move my elderly parents closer to us following Mum's stroke. While she recovered, they needed help most days, i was spending a lot of time travelling back and forward so it made sense to move them closer. As they lived in Windsor, we could not afford to move that way and I was very suprised when they agreed to our suggestion to move closesr to us. But it has proved very valuable in the years since. I think we were very lucky in that when we started looking, this property was up for sale. Its a 15 min drive for me but not too close. The layout was workable and it came with a garage, workshop and a large garden, mostly on the outside, wrapping round the corner plot. And it was perfect fo a Motorhome, which we'd be wanting for years but had nowhere to keep it. 😃 Our first change was to add a shower room as they both struggle to get in and out of a bath. We had a good builder, Patrick, who we had used on our previous renovation (Scooby Cottage) though we did have to wait nearly a year before he could start work. Having the shower room made a big difference to them and as we had applied for planning permission, we had a free shot at another for 6 months. So i drew up plans for an extension to the kitchen, as it is not very large with only a small amount of worktop. After receiving pp, we decided that the parents would not cope with the disruption so left it. But now we are looking to the future and what we can do. In the long term, when parents no longer need it, we want to extend the kitchen and across the back, to give a larger open plan space, and move in ourselves. Selling our current house to pay for the renovation. We dont need a lot of space and the bedrooms are fine, we'd use one and convert the other into a dressing/storage room. But after wanting to build a Passivhaus for years, and hearing about the benefits of living in such from many on here, I am hoping we can renovate to a good enough standard to give us a warm, low energy, home without any draughts. So thats the plan! I hope you'll enjoy the 'journey' as we progress through the renovation. Next time - Using an Architect firm. 🤔

Wow - this is on the market for £1.2million. Seems Passive House, as thye call it, is worth paying for. Tho' maybe thats a normal price for 3 bed detached in St Albans? https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/145215260#/?channel=RES_NEW

If I add cavity wall insulation to my bungalow, with the intention of making it as airtight and insulated as possible for a limited budget, do I need to cap the top of the cavity? I do plan to remove the first couple of layers of tiles and try to join the cavity insulation to the attic insulation. So presumably not. I shall add something to ensure airflow into the roofspace. Then i need to ask about the vapour barrier and the best way to add that. But one thing at a time. 🙂